Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser starts his own media studio Absurd Ventures

Dan Houser starts his own media and game studio. The co-founder of GTA publisher Rockstar wants to ‘create material for all platforms and formats’ with Absurd Ventures, but it is still unknown what he is working on.

Absurd Ventures now has a website, but it only contains information that does justice to the studio’s name. In a press release the company writes that Absurd Ventures is ‘a media company that wants to focus on new intellectual property for all platforms and formats’. The company must create ‘narrative worlds’, characters and stories for a variety of media. According to Absurd Ventures, the medium is not the most important starting point. It not only mentions games, but also books, graphic novels and podcasts. Although the company confirms that it exists, it does not yet say what it is working on and when the first products or titles should appear.

The studio was set up by Dan Houser. He was one of the co-founders of Rockstar Games, which created and published blockbusters Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.

Houser left Rockstar in 2020 after working there for 20 years. It’s still not clear why Houser left there; he had been on ‘extended leave’ since the spring of 2019. In 2020, there were already rumors that Houser was working on a new studio. At that time he already registered a company called Absurd Ventures, but it was far from clear what would happen to it. There was also speculation that that company would invest in other game developers.